Former Australian captain Ricky Ponting, recently in an interview, said that it was only a matter of time before Pakistan’s Babar Azam became the number one ranked batsman in Test cricket. Ricky Ponting said Babar Azam has all the required qualities to become the best batsman in Test cricket.

Former Australian cricketer Ricky Ponting feels that it is only a matter of time before Babar Azam became the number one batsman in Test cricket. The former Australian skipper feels Babar Azam has all the qualities that are required to be the best in the longest format of the game. Ponting’s comments come ahead of Australia’s upcoming tour of Pakistan which is happening for the first time after 24 years.

Ricky Ponting on ICC‘s review show said, “He (Babar Azam) has been great in T20I cricket in the past as well, hasn’t he? His white-ball cricket has been nothing short of breathtakingly good for the last four-five years. He’s the same as Shaheen. I don’t get to see a lot of these guys outside of when they tour Australia, but when I saw Babar in the second innings in Brisbane in the first Test against Australia, some of the shots that I saw him play on a fast bouncy Brisbane pitch – both on the front and back foot – against Hazlewood, Starc and Cummins – it was like, I have heard a lot about him and I have seen a fair bit of his while-ball stuff, but this guy is the real deal”.

“I think I said then that for this guy, the sky is the limit. It’s only a matter of time I felt before he was going to be either the No.1-ranked Test batter in the world or certainly challenging for it. He’s probably challenging for that position right now and probably if he had played a few more Test matches through the last couple of years he’d be knocking the door down for that,” he added.

Ricky Ponting further said, “He’s a beautiful player, simple as that. The thing I always look for with these younger type of batters is if they can play well off the back foot in Australia, and particularly through the off-side with a straight bat – which is probably an area that Joe Root hasn’t quite got on top of just yet and why he hasn’t made those big scores in Australia”.

“Babar did that and hit on the front foot back down the ground as well. These are just things that I look for as markers and indicators in touring batters when they come to Australia and Babar he ticked both those boxes,” he concluded.